A Palestinian Journalist Escapes Death in Gaza

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

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4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Mohammed R. Mhawish was living in Gaza City during Israel’s invasion, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack. He witnessed the invasion for months and reported on its devastating consequences for Al Jazeera, The Nation, and other outlets. After his home was targeted in an Israeli strike, which nearly killed him, he fled Gaza. In The New Yorker, he’s written about mental-health workers who are trying to treat a deeply traumatized population, while themselves suffering from starvation, the loss of loved ones, their own injuries—and the constant, remorseless death toll around them. “They were telling me, ‘We cannot wait for the war to stop to start healing—or for ourselves to heal—to start healing others,’” Mhawish relates to David Remnick. “I understood they were trying to heal by helping others heal.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the political scene.
0:07.0	I'm David Remnick.
0:08.3	Early each week, we bring you a conversation from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:16.5	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:25.4	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:29.0	The war in Gaza has been, among many other humanitarian disasters, deadly for journalists.
0:36.3	Foreign reporters have almost no access to Gaza,
0:38.6	so nearly all the reporting on the war's impact
0:41.2	comes from Palestinian journalists on the ground.
0:45.0	Israeli officials often accuse them
0:46.9	of lying about what's happening,
0:48.9	or they even accuse them of being terrorists.
0:51.7	A week ago, the IDF struck a tent
0:53.9	where Al Jazeera journalists were
0:56.0	working, killing seven people. One of them, Israel said, was a Hamas operative, which Al Jazeera denied.
1:03.8	Close to 200 members of the press have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 23, according to the
1:10.3	Committee to Protect Journalists.
1:12.4	A young journalist named Mohamed Mahesh was very nearly among them.
1:17.1	After surviving an Israeli strike, Mahwish left Gaza, but he still reports on what's happening
1:22.5	there.
1:23.8	He just wrote for the New Yorker about mental health workers who are treating a deeply traumatized population.
1:30.4	Well, they themselves, of course, are suffering all the devastation of this long and terrible war.
	...

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